"Oh, I should call employment 'ease' now."
"Did you ask for more once, then?"
"Yes, I used to be more foolish. 'Experience teaches fools.'"
"No, it doesn't," said Kincaid. "Experience teaches intelligent people; fools go on blundering to the end. 'Once——?' I interrupted you."
"Well, it used to mean a home of my own, and relations to care for me, and money enough to settle the bills without minding if they came to five shillings more than I had expected. It's a beautiful regulation that the less we have, the less we can manage with. But the horse couldn't live on the one straw."
"How did you come to this?" asked Kincaid; "couldn't you get different work before the last straw?"
"If you knew how I tried! I haven't any friends here; that was my difficulty. I wanted a situation as a companion, but I had to give the idea up at last, and it ended in my going to Pattenden's. Don't think they know! I mean, don't imagine they guess the straits I'm in: that would be unfair. They have been very kind to me."
"You've never been a companion, I suppose?"
"No; but I hoped, for all that. Everything has to be done for the first time; every adept was a novice once.".
"That's true, but there are so many adepts in everything to-day that the novices haven't much chance."